"Standard specifications," which require "standard materials," put in by "standard methods," have done their part most fully to dis courage owners, contractors, and finally architects. The same judgment used in buying supplies of life that will satisfy requirements, should be used in buying building material; and success in buying depends on knowing how poor, as well as how good, to buy.
It is the right of the owner to understand all the differences in quality of materials, and why they are to be used. If he does not, he will probably be much annoyed by the wiseacres, who are sure to criticise everything delivered on the site, and the end is apt to be severe criticism of the architect, who "did not know enough to specify the best." It will rarely occur to the owner, that, had the best been specified, it would have carried his building well into the hands of the mortgagee. This interest, too, will lead to co-operation with the architect and the contractor, which will lead the owner to "give and take" in minor matters, to the mutual advantage of himself and the contractor. It is, further, his right to have freaks and notions; and, after a careful presentation of the case, his ideas as to materials, though they may be decidedly different from those of his architect, should be respected, and the material incorporated as dictated by him. Herein is the opportunity for the architect to use his best technical knowledge, and so meet the conditions that in spite of them the result will be satisfactory. The architect who says that he carried out the dictations of the owner and is not responsible for the result, is apt to lose a patron and possibly make an enemy.
The Contractor. As a general thing, the only object the contractor has in mind in taking the work is the pecuniary profit to himself in the transaction. It is rarely that satisfactory results can be obtained
from a man who is losing money; generally he so manages that the owner is as great a loser, and the architect is blamed for the losses of both.
While the contractor is under obligations, after taking the con tract, to carry out the work "as directed," it is well to remember that his assumption of the contract was a purely voluntary act on his part, and that he was under no obligation to take it. It is his right to know, before he puts in his bid, just what he is expected to furnish and to do, and not to be left to furnish what in the judgment of some one not interested in him are materials of "best quality" or "good quality." Nothing will so much tend to draw from him the best results, as to feel the sentiment of co-operation before referred to on the part of the owner and the architect.
The Specification Writer. The central figure in this transaction is the specification writer. His tact must arrange the conditions under which the work is to be done; his technical knowledge must supply the data, and set forth in clear, explicit language the descrip tion of the material which the contractor is to furnish and the owner is to accept. He is to be the arbitrator when any question arises affecting the interests of both in conflicting ways; and for his comfort the arbitration must be such that both sides will see its full justice. In order that the necessity for arbitration may arise as seldom as possible, it is the more necessary that all the conditions and ques tions liable to cause misunderstanding be fully studied and settled in the specification. It is the duty of the superintendent to see that the contractor follows out the requirements of the specification; but it is unfortunate to have the specification .so loosely written that the requirements are ambiguous or at least not explicit and the con tractor is made to feel that he is distrutsed, or that he is obliged to furnish materails or labor at a loss under an arbitrary decision, which, bad he been more fully informed as to the detailed requirements, he would not have done.
(Particular attention is called to the following paragraph, as the advice contained therein is of the utmost value.) Thus, the specification writer must be a man of tact and technical knowledge. It is outside the scope of this paper to discuss the former quality except in a most general way; but it vill be its object so to treat the technical side that the student can develop such lines of thought as will enable him, whenever questions arise, to attack them from such points as will gain for him the necessary inside information; and it is in no sense its intent to set up such matter as will serve as models and forms to be applied to miscellaneous conditions. His training as a specification writer should be such as to accustom him to think in building material; and when the habit is formed, the student, in passing structures completed or in course of construction from clay to day, will constantly find himself reasoning as to the use of various materials. This is technical education. No school, no matter how long or how thorough its course, will cover all the points to be decided in the first modest specification. All the training any school can give is to teach a man to think out the solution of his first and each succeed ing commission along sound lines. This is the character of work which rouses enthusiasm in the worker and without which the work will amount to little.